_Bread._--When manufactured by the unsuperintended native, the conditions under which this almost indispensable article of food is prepared are too often unspeakably nasty; but a good deal more might be done to ameliorate this than is usually attempted, by the occasional unofficial superintendence of customers, and by the boycotting of such bakers as refuse to maintain a decent standard of cleanliness. It is quite possible that the result of such a visit may lead the enquirer to “cry off” bazaar-made bread for the rest of his life, for it is an absolute fact that a surprise visit of this sort once revealed the fact that several lepers were employed in kneading the European bread supply; but it is surely undesirable that such enormities should be perpetrated unchecked, and there can be no doubt that at least some improvement might be secured if people would but interest themselves in the matter. When good bread cannot be obtained, it should be remembered that it is quite possible for it to be made at home with baking powder, by the use of which the trouble and uncertainty involved in the use of yeast may be avoided. Investigations conducted under the Food and Drugs Act have, however, shown that the acid ingredient of many baking powders is alum, which is injurious, if taken for any time in so large a quantity as is required to raise bread, so that perhaps it is safer to use cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda, mixed separately with the flour in the proportion of 16 by weight of the former to 7 of the latter; a bare teaspoonful of the tartar, to an eggspoon of soda, for each nine tablespoons of flour, is the housewife’s way of getting a sufficiently near approach to chemical accuracy.